Tag Archives: blogs

Blogs I read

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I do read other people’s opera related blogs. Here are a few of the ones I read fairly regularly:

Mostly about the Toronto scene but worth reading anyway

Musical Toronto – Perhaps the most comprehensive blog covering the Toronto classical music scene.  John Terauds is a former music critic of the Toronto Star and it was, in large part, his removal from that role (and its elimination) that “inspired” me to write How to write an opera review for a Toronto newspaper.

Definitely the Opera – Lydia Perović’s blog is perhaps not updated as often as one might wish but what is there is always worth a read.  This is the only place I know when you can get just about every opera in town dissected through the lens of gender theory, with a distinct queer bias.  She’s not a bad novelist either.

barczablog – Leslie Barcza is a self described Pollyanna.  If it’s possible to find good in a performance he will.  This is not to say he’s not insightful.  He is, often brilliantly so.  It’s just that he prefers not to dwell on the negative.  I’ve learned a lot from him especially when I have found myself reviewing pieces I wouldn’t have chosen to buy tickets for.  It may not be my thing but that doesn’t make it bad or wrong.  More than a few professional critics could usefully take lessons from this blog.

Random friends in the blogosphere

The Earworm – A very personal, quirky blog written by a young American academic.  It contains good thoughtful reviews of performances, mainly at the Met, and detailed dissections of video recordings; mainly baroque and classical and often in several instalments.  Also dreams and stuff.

Regie or not Regie – Contains links, information and analysis of just about anything operatic being live streamed anywhere in the world.  Also lots of pointers to Youtube clips.  For giggles there are also compendia of “stupid reviewer comments” mostly from amazon.com.

Opera Obsession – Another opera blog from a young American academic currently in Germany.  It’s very erudite in a good way.  I wish I wrote as well as Lucy.

Intermezzo – One of the great news, rumour and gossip sites of the opera world and not nearly as unpleasant as the other one.  I don’t know how she does it.

Third Floor Republic – A Boston based opera, music and theatre blog.  Quite eclectic, always intelligent and has cats.

Likely Impossibilities – A good place to find long, thoughtful reviews of performances mainly at the Metropolitan Opera.

Reward for effort

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jane_pensive_smallVarious discussions on and around this post got me thinking about the issue of reward for effort versus instant gratification and what that means for audiences, critics and management.  It goes something like this.  Opera house schedules are dominated by relatively elderly, often unchallenging repertory.  As Philip Hensher says, it’s as if The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was still the most performed piece on the straight stage.  In North America these works are usually presented in a way that is unchallenging and familiar to audiences.  There isn’t much new work on show and most of what there is is musically fairly undemanding.  Even 20th century classics like Lulu or Peter Grimes aren’t much seen except perhaps in the very large centres.  In Europe it’s a bit different.  The standard works tend to be presented in more challenging productions.  The 20th century classics are given more often and new work is often rather more demanding in nature; Riemann and Birtwistle rather than Heggie and Adams.

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Occasional round up

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Some stuff that’s caught my eye recently  in the opera blogosphere

Image from the NY production of Émilie pinched from Lucy’s blog

Lucy reviews Kaija Saariaho’s new opera Émilie.

Rob has started a new blog focussed on Regie.

At nonpiudifori there’s a piece on how opera companies can attract teenagers written, shock horror, by a teenager.

The Earworm continues her daily series of posts, most of which are sometimes idiosyncratic but always interesting reviews of opera DVDs.

Von Heute auf Morgen continues to be a great source for news of musical shenanigans in Vienna and Salzburg.